The Five Lessons I learnt from Nanowrimo
November is coming, and it’s almost time for the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo). I’m going in again for the third time. I won the contest back in 2018 and 2019, as well as Camp Nano back in July.
I’m ready again to spend every day writing a lot of words for a story and fitting it within my schedule. Getting my story I wanted to tell on paper feels so satisfying to achieve, once I made it to December with fifty thousand words across different chapters.
In the previous challenges, however, I learnt a lot of lessons from writing. They then influenced the changes in my career.
Thousands of words a day is never easy
Is fifty thousand words a lot? Some say it’s nothing to worry about, the rest sees it as a big number. Writing that much is a big feat for even the distinguished writers. There’s a bunch who can write like Brandon Sanderson, who writes over two thousand words a day.
When you start Nanowrimo, you should never leave it to the last minute.
Let’s be blunt here, sixteen hundred and sixty-seven words is a lot to write in a given day. I don’t write fast, so I tend to write eight hundred in one sitting. That’s only for a part of the day, so I had to write more words before the end of the night. But it gets worse. Whenever I fall behind on my daily goal, it increases for the remaining days. If I’m not careful, then I would end up with twenty-seven thousand words each day for the last remaining week!
This is why when you start Nanowrimo, you should never leave it to the last minute. The best I could manage is five thousand a day, and that’s only a tenth of the target goal. When I begin on the first of November this year, I will write as much as I can. That way, it would reduce the minimum target of words in the subsequent days, in case of any setbacks to my goal.
Outlining helps in preparation for writing
Pantser, the method of improvising the story during the write-up, can work as a method of writing. I tried this method a few times where I wrote a story from my head. I did this for my short stories, for I only have to tell it in just three thousand words. I once wrote the first few chapters of a book using this method. I then quit writing it due to a lack of ideas on where to go next. I didn’t even know how I could write meaningful scenes in the middle of the book.
Eventually, what I found for novels is that plotting really works. After I completed my 2018 entry, I started to jot down ideas for my next book. They blossomed into more significant arcs, which I then filled them into an outline. Finding out how to outline has proven to be one of the most useful techniques in writing. It helps to balance the scenes between the three acts. It allows for a better setup at the beginning and a weighty conclusion at the end.
I used to rely on different bits of software for recording ideas down. But when I won in 2018, I bought a copy of Scrivener at a discounted price; it became a boon for outlining my novel. I organised notes into folders, from characters and locations to a draft summary of the plot across chapters. It soon became my most essential tool, which beats everything I tried in the past and left to dust.
Of course, it doesn’t guarantee a perfect book in the first run. It will have to be edited and polished before it gets sold to readers, which leads to my next lesson.
The only victory is writing the book
All Nanowrimo asks for is a book; the first draft of a book. You could stick with a default goal of fifty-thousand words, but even that may not be enough for an actual book. Novels generally average at around one hundred and thousand words in total, which is like double of what Nanowrimo demands in a month. But that’s not all.
When I completed my 2018 entry, I felt so excited to release it. I promoted on social media that I would release it soon, and I was keen to share quotes from it. The excitement weaned off in the end. When I planned another book, I began to realise that story was uneven and didn’t allow for a good flow. It jumped between goals, which disallowed for a coherent story.
At the time of writing, I’m still editing my 2019 entry.
At the time of writing, I’m still editing my 2019 entry. It started out as a paper draft, before writing it again on my mac. I now rearranged the scenes in there for a smoother plot; that’s the contents of my fourth draft. That lasted for a year, and I am still far away from contacting an editor, the next step of the process.
I almost forgot to mention that writing a draft is the easiest step. I have yet to build research on reliable editors to contact, and the publishers guaranteed to accept my work. I could just self publish on Amazon, but that would assume the writing in my book is done to a substantial standard, and it comes with a flashy cover. Don’t get me started with the marketing though.
Paper Drafts didn’t work for me
I wrote my 2019 entry on paper. I was told writing on paper would help to translate my ideas and get accurate expressions for my story. Those are just myths.
It took a few pens and almost a lined notebook to write numerous chapters of my story. I jot down hundreds of words, causing my fingers to hurt. It was a fun experience; if it wasn’t for counting each and every word I wrote so far. I had to use my counter and go through each word on paper. It took way longer to do than just finding the word count feature of a word document. What I discovered was that I wrote more words than the amount I counted, and that was from when I rewrote it on my computer!
It was a waste of time. I ended up typing my drafts on screen, for they are easier to edit and backtrack. Perhaps writing on paper is better for forcing the words out instead of backtracking for errors, but I still did that. I would rather touch-type in sprints than to do that in my honest opinion.
Once I write, I never stop
Entering Nanowrimo in 2018 was when I got a taste of first blood in novel writing. I used to write short stories on rare occasions and mucked about between different forms of art and entertainment. But after I reached fifty thousand words in my novel draft, I felt great! I spent more time writing and planning my books, which brought my attention away from games and 3D modelling. In fact, I paid more attention to books than shows on TV. It was like it changed my life.
Nanowrimo is not an event for publishing a book, it encourages a writer to make one happen
From my understanding, Nanowrimo is not an event for publishing a book, it encourages a writer to make one happen. By placing mini deadlines on work and handing out events to meet with other writers, it gave me more confidence in writing my own story. After I did my 2018 entry, I felt more courage to express my ideas I had for a long time. It resulted in book drafts, which then allowed for self-reviewing and improvements to make them flow out more as stories.
My advice that if you are keen to join this year’s Nanowrimo, do it. You won’t regret it. Because I regretted when I didn’t join a decade ago, for it would have otherwise built a long track record of my writing efforts.